Method and Apparatus for Generating White Underbase and Generating Modified Separations for Printing on Colored Background Other Than Blank and White

ABSTRACT

The invention relates to an embedded system for printing on colored background based on automatic generation of white underbase including printing ink separations. The system comprising: an embedded apparatus for receiving input data respecting an image printable on the colored background. The image constitutes a color or a grayscale containing transparency information. The apparatus processes the input data and outputs white underbase information including printing ink separation; a dual-acting device capable of acting in a first aspect as a plate making or film generating means in respect of offline printing, and in a second aspect acting as a print controller in respect of online printing. The system also includes a printing device, which can be an offset printing device, a screen printing device, a hybrid printing device when offline printing being adapted; and/or, an inkjet printer, a laser printer or a toner-based printer when online printing being resorted.

FIELD OF THE INVENTION

The invention relates to method and apparatus for generating white underbase and generating modified separations for printing on colored background other than blade and white.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

Since a period of little over last 10 years, digital or direct printing on garment has evolved tremendously with its wide spread use as a method of printing the garments. The methods involve using an inkjet printer employing process color inks along with white ink to hide the background color of the garment for printing an image from its digital representation. A suitable white underbase is printed on the garment as a masking layer to mask the color of the garment over which the color inks are laid down to produce a replica of the image to be printed.

There exist methods to fully automate the generation of white underbase for the colored backgrounds other than white. One of such methods provides for using the color of the background as an optimization [1]. The method achieves this objective by using the color of the background as a virtual ink and not using the corresponding ink during printing, if the virtual ink happens to be a part of the printer primaries inkset. This results in great savings of white ink in the underbase and thereby reducing the costs of the print.

There are other methods used by screen printers traditionally, when the color of the background is any other color than black. Such methods sought to optimize the use of the white ink under any color ink combination in the print using black ink. Such method is also referred for use in digital printing as its subject matter by reference [2]. However, such methods don't take advantage of the ink optimization offered by using the background color of the garment.

Therefore, when the color of the background is black, method described in [1] takes full advantage of the color of the background in reducing the ink amount that goes on the print and thereby reducing the cost of the print. However, when the color of the background is other than black, none of the two methods described above fully optimizes the use of printing inks including white ink. The method described by [1] only takes the advantage of the color of the background by virtually converting the background color into a printing ink but fails to take advantage of savings offered by optimization of white ink for combinations using black ink as used by screen printers in prior art. The method used by screen printers fate to take advantage of the color of the background while only optimizing the use of white ink under black ink combinations.

OBJECT OP THE INVENTION

Therefore, the object of this invention is to provide a method and an apparatus for fully automatic generation of optimized white underbase and printing ink separations taking full advantage of the color of the background and black ink usage in printing combination, on colored backgrounds other than black and white.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

The methods presented by present invention can be used by both digital garment printing and conventional screen-printing apparatus printing on the garments.

In fact, the methods presented here in context of the garment printing are in general applicable to any scenario of printing involving printing on any type of substrate having colored background using a color inkset and white ink.

DETAIL DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

According to the present invention the apparatus for producing a white underbase is shown in FIG. 1.

a. Input represents the image that is to be printed on the colored background. This image can be color or grayscale. The image can be vector or bitmap in nature. The image may also contain transparency information for determining what pixels/portion of image to consider for printing and what to be discarded. The transparency information also determines how to combine the pixels/portion of image with the color of the substrate.

[Definition 1—Transparency] The transparency information is the information that indicates how opaque the image is at a particular location. Popular image editing software embed this information as a part of the image. Adobe Photoshop from Adobe corporation for example embeds this information with the color data as “layer”. This transparency information is generally generated by the designer of the image as a part of his artwork design, so no special effort is required here.

The transparency information can also be encoded with the image data in different ways, for example as a special color which is not the part of the image data. Such encoding is permitted by file formats like PNG or GIF[3]. Some graphic image file formats also refer to this information as “alpha” data which can be interpreted same as transparency. Example of such a file format is TGA[3]. The purpose of highlighting different ways of encoding the transparency information with the image data is to illustrate different means of encoding the transparency information along with the image data. The name of the file formats mentioned here are only for the purpose of illustration and by no means excludes those that are not mentioned here but contains transparency information as described by this definition. Any image that does not contain the transparency information explicitly as per this definition is assumed to be fully Non-Transparent or Opaque.

Another term, that is used very often in place of transparency is opacity. In fact, Opacity and Transparency are duals of each other and related by a simple equation of Transparency %=100%−Opacity %. Hence throughout this invention the transparency and opacity are this words used as deemed appropriate to illustrate and are related to each other by the preceding equation. Also, Opacity is expressed in % on a scale 0 to 100%, where 0 represents full transparency and 100 represents full opacity and the values between 0 and 100 representing the intermediate states.

b. Unit 1 is where white underbase along with the suitable modified separations is generated automatically from the presented input. This is explained in more detail later.

c. Unit 2 is the plate making device or film generating device if the printing is to be done offline. If the printing is to be done online then this device is the print controller associated with a printing device that generates instructions for printing the corresponding white underbase data and modified color ink separation data generated by unit 1. This reception of information can be instant for an online printing device as it is being generated by unit 1 or can be stored and transmitted later to it The printing devices controlled by the print controller could be conventional screen printing devices using plates/screens generated by corresponding separations, digital printing devices and hybrid printing devices (combination of conventional printing device and digital printing device).

d. Offline printing devices such as offset printing or screen-printing machines etc. Online printing devices include devices like inkjet printer, laser printer, toner-based printer etc.

[Definition 2—Online device] For the purpose of this invention we define an online printing device as that device that can make utilization of the white underbase and modified ink separation information generated by unit 1 directly without needing any physical intermediate like plate or screen or film etc. prior for printing.

[Definition 3—Offline device] For the purpose of this invention we define an offline printing device as that device that can make utilization of the white underbase and modified ink separation information generated by unit 1 only with the help of a physical intermediate like plate or screen or film etc. prior for printing.

Hybrid machines mentioned above are combination of offline and online printing devices as they involve both the preparation of screen/plate before printing and can also use the data corresponding to digital part directly without involving any physical screen/plate. However, for the purpose of this invention they are considered as offline devices based on the need to have a screen/plate for printing.

Explanation of Unit 1.

AN ink amounts referred are in percentage.

When the background color is other than black and white, following steps are taken to optimize the white ink usage.

Background of the substrate can be converted to an ink by using the white amount in underbase based on the following equation—

BK (background) Color ink=100%−White ink %;

Above equation in alterative form as given in equation (1) can also be used to generate the white ink given the BK color ink amount

White ink (BK)=100%−BK (background) Color ink   equation (1)

Note that BK (background) color ink is virtual, as it is derived from the background of the substrate. The value of BK (background) color ink can be on normalized scale of 0 to 1, and in that event ‘1’ is used instead of ‘100’ to subtract the BK (background) color ink value in equation (1).

The white ink under the black ink combination can be generated using the following equation—

White ink (K)=100%−Black (K) ink amount  equation (2).

The value of Black (K) color ink can be on normalized scale of 0 to 1, and in that event ‘1’ is used instead of ‘100’ to subtract the Black (K) color ink value in equation (2).

The final white ink to be used in printing can be computed using one of the following “objective” function—

Please note that the input White ink (Bk) and White ink (K) and constant value (CV) in equation (3) are in normalized scale. Thus, the output Final White ink (W) below is in normalized scale and can be converted to percentage by multiplying by 100.

final White ink (W)=Fn(White ink (Bk),White ink (K))+Constant value (CV)  equation (3).

Where “Objective” Function Fn can be any one of the following depending upon the choice of the implementer.

-   -   a. Multiply. The two input values White ink (Bk) and White         ink (K) are multiplied by each other and assigned to the output     -   b. Minimum. The minimum of two input values White ink (Bk) and         White ink (K) is assigned to the output     -   c. Maximum. The maximum of two input values White ink (Bk) and         White ink (K) is assigned to the output     -   d. Average. The average of two input values White ink (Bk) and         White ink (K) is assigned to the output

The White ink (BK) and White ink (K) are computed based on equation (1) and (2) respectively. The output value of the Objective function can be added with a constant value CV before being assigned to the final White ink (W). CV can assume any value between 0 to 1 on normalized scale.

There can be several other practical ways the two values can be combined using one or more combination of the above defined Functions Fn. Such combinations are covered under the scope of this invention as Function Fn Itself. Infect, as would be obvious to one skilled in art, more such useful objective functions can be defined that are not defined here. Such functions are based on the spirit of the teachings of present invention and thus covered by the scope and claim of the present invention.

A color table CT can be generated linking an input color to the printing inkset (using physical printer primaries including black (K) ink as well as the virtual background color (BK) ink). If a physical primary that corresponds to the background color exists in the inkset then this physical ink primary is not included in the final printing inkset. The values of the BK ink and the K ink can then be used to generate corresponding white underbase using equation (1) and (2) and combined white underbase using equation (3). The color table can be implemented either as a function or as multi-dimensional lookup tables or as a combination of both. The structure and implementation of the color table is outside the scope of this invention. For the purpose of this invention the linkage provided by the color table between the input color and printing inkset is the only consideration. The methods to generate a color table based on multi color inkset are well established in literature [4][5].

Following steps are involved to convert an input color (I) Into white underbase and equivalent printing ink separations—

Step 1—Split the input color (I) into printer primaries (P)n where n is the number of inks in the printing inkset including the virtual background color (BK) and black (K) ink, based on the color table CT.

Step 2—Compute White ink (Bk) using equation (1).

Step 3—Compute White ink (K) using equation (2).

Step 4—Compute White ink (W) using the objective function (equation 3) taking as inputs the white inks corresponding to BK and K generated in Step 2 and Step 3 respectively.

Step 5—Output the white underbase generated, White ink (W) generated in step 4 along with ink values from (P)n generated in step 1 corresponding to physical ink primaries and ignoring the virtual background color.

Where, Printer Primaries are the inks in the inkset that are used to print on the particular printer. The example of such inkset can be CMYK, CMYKOB etc., where K denotes the black ink. Inkset where K is not present the value of K in the Step 1 is assumed to be 0 (Zero).

Note: The value of Transparency information encoded with the input image color is used to decide whether to completely discard the pixel or how much of it to consider/combine with the printing background. For example, the pixel with 100% transparency is discarded from processing and nothing is printed. The pixel with 0% transparency is fully printed and pixel with 50% transparency is combined in half with the printing background.

The output of step 5 can be used with or without further processing on the substrate, without affecting the usefulness of this invention. The purpose of further processing could be for special effects or for linearization of tonal output etc.

What is the best method to convert the input color value into corresponding printing colors/primaries data is outside the subject matter of this invention as a wide amount of literature is available on this subject. Further how those generated value of printing color primaries including white underbase are to be treated after going through the steps of present invention is also outside the scope of present invention as vast amount of literature is available. See references [4] [5].

There are several variations possible while implementing the steps of the invention. Examples of such possible variations (though not as an exhaustive list) are presented below—

-   -   a. White underbase values can be pre-computed and saved along         with output printing ink values inside the color table that is         used to convert an input color into printing primaries. This         would be done to speed up the computation of white underbase.     -   b. Generating white ink (Bk) and White ink (K) as separate         layers for various reasons including for additional processing         of individual layer data before combining them using one of the         objective functions defined by equation (3). These layers can be         combined either manually or programmatically (automatic under         program control).

All such variations in implementation that are based on the spirit of the present invention are covered by the claims of this invention.

Examples

-   1. For substrate color ‘Gray’ having corresponding color value in     LAB (37.25, 1.74, 1.2), the following table is output value for     various colors using a particular color table CT.

Printing primaries Input (P)n in CMYK and color (I) virtual Objective White in (R, G, background color White White function underbase S No. B) BK ink (BK) ink (K) fn( ) used value 1 (98, 35, CMYK (0.008, 0.18 0.988 Multiply 0.178 65) 0.973, 0.333, 0.012), BK (0.820) 2 (188, CMYK (0.008, 0.816 1 Minimum 0.816 107, 156) 0.596, 0.106, 0.0), BK (0.184) 3 (184, 11, CMYK (0.059, 0.94 1 Maximum 1 155) 0.784, 0.0, 0.0), BK (0.06) 4 (170, 91, CMYK (0.0, 0.6 1 Average 0.8 20) 0.592, 0.973, 0.0), BK (0.4)

-   2. For substrate color ‘Red’ having corresponding color value in LAB     (33.79, 59, 25.6), the following table is output value for various     colors using a particular color table CT.

Printing primaries Input (P)n in CMYK and color (I) virtual Objective White in (R, G, background color White White function underbase S No. B) BK ink (BK) ink (K) fn( ) used value 1 (98, 35, CMYK (0.42, 0.137 0.97 Multiply 0.133 65) 0.51, 0.08, 0.07), BK (0.863) 2 (188, CMYK (0.028, 0.72 1 Minimum 0.72 107, 156) 0.533, 0.047, 0.0), BK (0.28) 3 (184, 11, CMYK (0.075, 0.94 1 Maximum 1 155) 0.773, 0.0, 0.0), BK (0.06) 4 (170, 91, CMYK (0.047, 0.28 0.996 Average 0.638 20) 0.13, 0.961, 0.004), BK (0.72)

-   3. For substrate color ‘Blue’ having corresponding color value in     LAB (29.44, 6.94, −38.15), the following table is output value for     various colors using a particular color table CT.

Printing primaries Input (P)n in CMYK and color (I) virtual Objective White in (R, G, background color White White function underbase S No. B) BK ink (BK) ink (K) fn( ) used value 1 (98, 35, CMYK (0.004, 0.4 0.988 Multiply 0.395 65) 0.996, 0.573, 0.012), BK (0.6) 2 (188, CMYK (0.008, 0.85 1 Minimum 0.85 107, 156) 0.62, 0.122, 0.0), BK (0.15) 3 (184, 11, CMYK (0.051, 0.92 1 Maximum 1 155) 0.784, 0.0, 0.0), BK (0.08) 4 (170, 91, CMYK (0.0, 0.61, 0.72 1 Average 0.86 20) 1, 0.0), BK (0.28)

Implementation

Such a system can be implemented as an embedded system inside any printing device with a microprocessor or with computing ability or using a computing device or a PDA or an ASIC The preferred method of implementation is a computer system that can be interfaced with the devices mentioned as a part of unit 2 or work in isolation and interfaced with unit 2 by means of data storage or transmitting devices.

CITED REFERENCES

-   1. Patent application (WO/2007/099554)—METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR     GENERATING WHITE UNDERBASE AND GENERATING SUITABLY MODIFIED     SEPARATIONS FOR PRINTING ON COLORED BACKGROUND OTHER THAN WHITE. -   2. Print data generating apparatus, printing apparatus, method to     generate print data, and computer usable medium therefor—U.S. Pat.     No. 8,125,688 B2 -   3. Encyclopedia of Graphics file formats (Second Edition)—Book by     James D. Murray and William VanRyper, published by O'Reilly &     Associates Inc. -   4. Color Technology for Electronic Imaging Devices-Book by Henry R.     Kang, published by SPIE Press. ISBN 0-8194-2108-1 -   5. ICC file format for color profiles—International color consortium     website www.color.org. 

1. An embedded system for online or offline printing on colored background other than black or white, based on automatic generation of white underbase including printing ink separations, the system comprising: an embedded apparatus for receiving input data respecting an image printable on the colored background, the image constituting one of a color and a grayscale containing transparency information, the apparatus processing the input data and outputting white underbase information including printing ink separation; a dual-acting device capable of acting in a first aspect as a plate making or film generating means in respect of offline printing, and in a second aspect acting as a print controller in respect of online printing; and a printing device selected from a group consisting of offset printing device, screen printing device and Hybrid printing device when offline printing being adapted, and/or, selected from a group comprising inkjet printer, laser printer and toner-based printer when online printing being resorted.
 2. A method of generating white underbase information from a given image/color to enable printing on a substrate having colored background other than black and white, comprising: splitting the input color (I) into printer primaries (P)n where n is the number of inks in the printing inkset including the virtual background color ink (BK) and black (K) ink, based on color table CT; computing a White ink (Bk) using the parametric relationship of white ink (BK)=100%−BK (background color ink); computing White ink (K) using the parametric relationship of white ink (K)=100%−K (black ink amount), computing White underbase ink amount (W) using as inputs the white ink value from steps (b) and steps (c), and the objective function defined by the relationship Final white ink (W)=Fn (white ink (BK), white ink (K))+constant value (CV); and outputting the white underbase generated, White ink (W) generated in step (d), ink values from (P)n generated in step (a) corresponding to physical ink primaries, and ignoring the virtual background color.
 3. The method as claimed in claim 2, wherein a given set of Printer primaries (P)n data including virtual background color ink (BK) data is used to generate white ink value for the (Bk) and (K) separation.
 4. The method as claimed in claim 2, wherein the white ink value from (Bk) and (K) is configured using an objective function fn (white ink (Bk), and White ink (K)), taking as input corresponding computed values of K and BK white ink, and outputting a single combined value for the white underbase.
 5. Device of claim 1 implementing method of claim
 2. 6. A method of claim 2 capable of being implemented in a device as claimed in claim
 1. 7. Article printed using device of claim
 5. 